Back to the Star Wars
by Scar M'zeda
Summary: A Back to the Future slash Star Wars blend... just an experiment


Twin suns rose over the bleak desert horizon. The air's humidity rose, and moisture farmers everywhere took advantage of this, running for their vaporators. Sandcrawlers slowly flared to life as Jawas began another day of trade, shining up their droids and securing new restraining bolts on recent acquisitions. Today was likely to be a good one for scavenging, as there had been many Tusken attacks that had left devastation - and therefore wreckage to scavenge as well - in their wake.

The Sarlaac stretched its beaked tongue in the Great Pit of Carkoon, the suns only now beginning to actually beat down its incredible waves of heat. Its latest victims, mostly dead, (though some, even after many years, still lived as they were digested) created a satisfactory weight within the massive creature.

Yes, on Tatooine, nothing was different, even though this was a massive paradox; Tatooine was very different from any other world in that it was the same everywhere, a vast desert... only it contained such a wide variety of creatures, such that not every species was even known to the few professionals that dwelled on the scalding orb.

Some called Old Brown Kenobi a professional. Of course he was professional in a lot of fields; Brown Kenobi was one of the few great minds of Tatooine, though he was not well known there... in fact his fame was mostly in Coruscant, where he had sent much of his research. Yes, Old Doc Brown Kenobi, he certainly was a mystery; no one knew where he had been schooled, but he definitely HAD been schooled, as he apparently had memorized volumes upon volumes of texts and holos concerning his many experiments, both biological and technological. Also, despite his modest dwelling, he apparently was in possession of huge pools of assets, as he invariable produced devices which - successful or not - looked to the careful eye to be very expensive to make.

But Brown Kenobi was not at home.

This wasn't altogether strange, but usually he left a holo or datapad explaining his disappearance, or would at least send a transmission to check how things were going. Thoughts of such instances flew briefly through Luke McWalker's mind as he called for the old man. "Hey Doc! Doc?" He walked through his elderly friend's hut, his youthful mind searching for a sign of the hermit or his bordok friend, Windu, named for a Jedi Master Brown seemed to admire. The lesser bordok had apparently been met and befriended on one of Brown's adventures; the two were inseparable now.

"Doc Brown" to Luke was an old hermit who lived far on the outskirts of the Jundland Wastes. Luke often stopped by to chat with him when he could, as his hoverboard allowed for good traveling. Occasionally Luke would run errands Doc an object or two from Mos Eisley, where Brown rarely ventured; he often rejected Luke's invitations to go there, stating that Mos Eisley was nothing but "a city of tranks, lobos, and zipheads." Luke found it to be a much more appealing place than his home, especially since he had recently been playing with a Bith band that had started performing at the Cantina.

Luke's search for a sign of his friend and mentor paused as he found something of interest. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he moved toward an R2 unit sitting behind a table. The dust on the astromech's dome indicated that it either hadn't been used in a while, or that it HAD been used and caught in a sandstorm.

"Wow, you gotta lot of carbon scoring here, looks like you've seen a lot of action." he said to the deactivated droid. "Let's see if I can get you cleaned up before the Doc comes back."

And so he quickly rummaged through the Doc's tool box, chiseling and scraping the rubble from the sorry-looking droid. As he worked, he glanced hopefully at the com station in the corner, hoping to get something from his old friend; he hadn't seen anything from Kenobi in a while, so naturally he was a bit worried. Not to mention all the man's time-operated mechanisms, such as his alarm and his HoloNet terminal had still operated on schedule, meaning that the Doctor had meant to be around at this time but had had to leave in a hurry.

After a while, he noticed a small light on the droid's dome. With a start, he realized it must still be operational. Having grown somewhat weary of his solitude, he found the idea of having a droid to talk to appealing and searched for a way to activate it.

"There you go!" he said, and he watched the little droid hopefully as it whirred to life.

Suddenly there was incredible screech, and Luke gave a shout as the droid's multitude of utilities extended simultaneously. Electricity arced through the air, and Luke recoiled from a shower of sparks, swearing to himself as a garbage receptacle caught on fire.

The droid screeched and shook over and over before stopping suddenly. All was silent for a moment, and Luke had barely finished his sigh of relief when a beam of blue light shot from the droid, displaying a holo of a woman. The recording was soaked in interference, static everywhere.

"Youremyonlyhope, you'remyonlyhope. Gen-Gen-General Kenobi, years ago – only hope-hope, served with – he-help-help…" droned the voice, distorted violently by the droid's malfunction, and Luke ducked behind the table as another arc of electricity burst near him, sending sparks flying. Luke quickly picked up a remote that must have been connected to the droid's restraining bolt and pointed it at the erratic robot. The droid exploded then, sending debris everywhere in its final moments.

When the smoke cleared, Luke slowly stood up, walking carefully to the remains of the droid. No way he had done that…

"Must have had a self-destruct." He said to himself. He turned his head as the com unit lit up, and he made his way through the wreckage to the station. "INCOMING TRANSMISSION." the screen said. He hit the receive button and was welcomed by a blue holo of Brown Kenobi, his face clearly tired, but with a look in his eyes that suggested a giddy child was there… he was excited about something.

"Luke! Wonderful! Great timing!" the man cried, his arms held out in his joy, "I just need you to do one thing, I need you to get to Docking Bay 94 at midnight, I've made a breakthrough!"

"Dawn? I thought you hated Mos Eisley! Hold on, Doc, where are you, where's Windu, how come-"

"All in good time, Luke, all in good time. Oh, Luke, don't activate the astromech droid in the corner, there's a slight possibility of overload." Luke swallowed.

"I'll keep that in mind." Luke replied. A small light on the wall beeped, and he glanced at it.

"Luke, is that my chrono?"

"Yeah… yeah, it's eight in the morning." he said nonchalantly. Brown seemed to take this as very good news, however – the man's smile widened as he looked fervently at the chrono on his own wrist.

"My experiment worked! It's exactly twenty-five minutes slow!"

"Wait, wait… Doc! Are you telling me that it's eight twenty-five?!" asked Luke, panic tinging his question.

"Yes, why?"

"Blast!" he yelled, stumbling towards his hoverboard. "I'm late for our audition!" He grabbed the board and bolted, the door sliding down behind him and locking, leaving a bemused holo of Kenobi to terminate the transmission.

Once in Mos Eisley, Luke grabbed the back of a passing speeder, letting it pull him on his board as it sped through the spaceport. He gave the driver a sheepish grin when he saw him in his rear display. Letting go near the cantina, he ran in to find a very angry Figrin D'an screaming at him in his own language.

"[Luke! You're late. I believe that's four times in a row!" he shouted, the Bith's bald skull gleaming as he glared at Luke.

"I'm sorry, sir. Look, I have this thing called a LIFE, and I don't -"

"[Shut up, shut up, I don't want to hear your excuses! You got a real attitude problem, McWalker, you're a slacker! You remind me of your father, he was a slacker too."

"Don't talk about me that way, you know I'm important, I can play twice as -"

"[You play too damn loud to be confident in coming late all the time. Face it, McWalker, you don't have a chance, you're too much like your old man, no McWalker ever amounted to anything in the history of Mos Eisley!" screamed the Bith, his black eyes blazing, the other band members eyeing the conflict warily.

Luke turned away, hurt and angry, his mind swimming with all sorts of nasty things to say, but he bit his tongue; it would be best to give the Bith time to cool off… then maybe he could talk about their next gig. He sighed wearily, but his mood brightened considerably as Mara Gallandro walked into view. Seeing his face light up, Mara ran to him, hugging him and immediately asking him questions.

"How did it go?"

"I dunno, I showed up late again." Luke said dejectedly, his eyes clouding over once again.

"Four times in a row?" asked Mara before she realized that it wasn't the most helpful thing to say. "Never mind, Luke, there's always the holotapes, when are you going to send those in?"

"I don't know, Mara… Jeez, I just… what if they don't like it, what if they say 'get out of here, kid,' I just don't think I could take that kind of rejection… Damn, if mom were here she'd say I sounded like my father." He looked down at himself, beginning his long-established routine of scrutinizing his psyche from every point of view. Everyone had known George Mcwalker, it seemed; a navigator on a spice freighter, he had been apparently killed by Darth Tannen when Luke was small.

He was also, apparently, the biggest whiner in the whole galaxy.

Luke shook his head, clearing his mind. He closed his eyes, remembering Doc's words in his head…

"If you put your mind to it, the Force will accomplish anything." he said aloud.

Mara recognized the words of Luke's mentor and smiled. "You're sounding like a Jedi with all that Force-talk."

"Yeah, yeah…" A speeder whizzed by, and Luke's gaze followed it longingly. "Check out that XP-96! That is hot…" The speeder was huge, with spacious seats and comfortable upholstery. His eyes went back to his girlfriend's, and he slipped an arm around her waist. "Wouldn't you want to take one of those out on the dunes… with sleeping quarters in the backseat, perhaps?"

"Stop it…" said Mara with an embarrassed grin on her face. "Does your mom know? About tomorrow night?" Her face had an uncomfortable expression on it, as if she felt somewhat guilty.

"What? Get out of town, she thinks I'm camping out at Toshi Station for the new power converters!" exclaimed Luke as his arm reestablished its rightful place around her waist. Mara let it stay this time. "Listen, if my mom knew I was going out with you she'd give me the works, telling me about how she never did any of that stuff when she was a kid… I think the woman was a Jedi or something!"

Mara laughed at her handsome boyfriend's words. "She's just trying to keep you respectable."

Luke leaned in. "Well… she's not doing a very good job…"

"Nuh-uh…" agreed Mara as she too leaned in…

"SAVE THE SIGNAL TOWER! SAVE THE SIGNAL TOWER!" an old woman exclaimed, rattling a bucket of credits and thwarting the two lovers' lips in their quest for unification. "Years ago, there was an INCREDIBLY rare lightning storm that truck the signal tower that started the Podraces. Our mayor, Goldie Wilson, has started a campaign to fix it. We at the Conservation of Memorials and Important Landmarks believe it should be preserved exactly the way it -"

"Here, lady." said Luke, tossing in a credit chip.

"Thank you, have a flyer." said the lady, reaching for his datapad in his pocket and plugging her data into it. Handing it back, she ran off to another group. "Save the signal tower!"

Luke turned back to his girlfriend, her red hair shining brightly. She laughed.

"You're such a scoundrel."

"You like me because I'm a scoundrel."

"I happen to like nice men, Luke Mcwalker." said Mara with mock incredulity. Her green eyes flashed playfully.

"I am a nice man."

"No, you're -" But she interrupted herself by leaning in and kissing him, even as she heard her name called behind her. Luke kissed her back, and was immediately disappointed when she broke off to look at whoever had called her. Her father sat in a small, modest speeder. "I gotta go."

She reached into Luke's pockets and grabbed his datapad, renaming the first file she found, replacing the filename with a set of numbers. "These codes can contact me over the HoloNet. I'll be staying with my aunt for a bit up in Anchorhead."

Luke smiled, noting with some amusement that the file she had renamed was the one the old woman had plugged into it. "See you tomorrow."

"I love you."

"I know."

He smiled as he watched her leave… tomorrow night couldn't come soon enough.

Of course, it was only when he got home that his smile disappeared.


End file.
